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The Hole

Page 3

by David Halliday


  “Shit! I’ll have to cancel. If Brennan weren’t such a cheap prick we’d have a dental plan. When was the last time you saw the dentist?”

  “I’ll need some money,” Terry responded. “There’s a class trip to the art gallery next week.”

  “Art gallery! What the hell does art have to do with education?” A Strange Hobby

  “And you call that a hobby?” Mary laughed. She put her gin down on the bar and reached for a cigarette. The tall dark gentleman beside her smiled with his gallows face, and flicked out a lighter to light the cigarette waiting in her lips. She sucked the flame into her long white cigarette. He slipped his lighter back into his pocket like a gunslinger, adjusted his bow tie, and gestured to the bartender for another round. Mary liked the way he looked. A man dressed in black had always appealed to her. And he was tall. God, he must be seven feet. Mary glanced at his hands and smiled. His name was Hank. Why doesn’t he use Henry?

  Hank turned and smiled at her. “Detroit won the Stanley Cup in 1950 against the Rangers who had to play all their home games at Maple Leaf Gardens. The circus had taken over Madison Square Garden in New York. Imagine not being able to play your home games at home.”

  “I don’t know much about sports, Hank,” Mary confessed, smoke curling seductively out of her lips.

  Hank smiled, his mouth salivating as he glanced at the cleavage in Mary’s dress.

  “What is it that you find so interesting about 1950?” Mary asked, leaning on her elbow as she stared up into the dark deep eyes of her compan-ion. How can anyone’s eyes be that blue?

  Hank shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “I think everyone should know something about something and I chose the year 1950. You wouldn’t have thought it was much of a year. Just another number. But a lot happened. Maybe a lot always happens.”

  “Well,” Mary smiled, “I find it very interesting. Tell me more.”

  “Rex Ingram died in 1950. He was the director who reputedly discovered Rudolph Valentino. He directed the great screen idol in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. His family name was Hitchcock but he adop-ted his mother’s name. Although he was married it was rumored that he was gay. His death was suspicious. Some say he was murdered.”

  “Oh my!” Mary gasped, tapping her cigarette gently on her ashtray.

  “Murdered! Why is it that people’s lives are so much more interesting after you find out that they were murdered?” 18

  “It was hushed up. Rumor had it that William Randolph Hearst murdered him in a fit of jealousy, thinking that Ingram was having an affair with Hearst’s mistress.”

  “Who was William Randolph Hearst?”

  “One of the most powerful men in America. He owned a string of tabloid newspapers.”

  “And no one was charged!”

  “It happens. People disappear under suspicious circumstances all the time and no one does anything about it.”

  In the background a Billie Holiday song about strange fruit played.

  The dishwasher under the bar changed gears. A package of cigarettes tumbled down inside the cigarette machine.

  “My husband disappeared,” Mary said, glancing over her shoulder to see who had bought cigarettes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Dead

  “I like the dead,” Hank said, nursing the glass of beer on the bar in front of him, staring at the bubbles piled on top of each other like eggs.

  “They don’t talk back.”

  Jack nodded and looked around the bar. He grabbed a package of cigarettes from under the bar and offered one to Hank. Hank shook his head. Jack flipped a cigarette into his mouth, tossed the cigarette package into a small nook beside the cash register and pulled out his lighter, which he twirled in his fingers before lighting his cigarette.

  Hank watched with marvel. “That’s quite a trick.” Jack shrugged his shoulders modestly.

  Hank sipped at his beer. “Don’t smoke. Made me dizzy when I tried it as a kid so I never took it up.” He laughed. “Didn’t want to stunt my growth. Don’t regret it. Can’t see what good it does you and then there’s all the money you spend. Figured it’s cheaper to marry and divorce, pay alimony and child support, send the kids to college than to smoke for thirty years. Once had an interview with Philip Morris down in the States. Five-figure position. Membership at the golf course. They have their own golf course. You should see the clubhouse. There’s a lot of money in weeds. In the end I had to turn them down. They insisted that I smoke their brand. I tried to tell them that I didn’t smoke anyone’s brand. Those were the days when nine out of ten doctors recommended 19 one of their brands and so they couldn’t understand why I wasn’t fond of good old St. Nic. I had my principles, and like I say, smoking made me dizzy. And if that don’t convince you, think about the loss of time.

  We’re only allotted so much grace. I could feel the grains of time slipping through the mouth of the hourglass and I didn’t want no weed in that mouth. Take Olaf Stapledon, for example.”

  Jack took a dry cloth, his cigarette hanging from his lips, lifted Hank’s beer and dried the bar. Then he replaced the bottle on a coaster. “What was that first name?” Jack asked, a faint wisp of a smile on his face.

  “Olaf.”

  “Olaf?” Jack considered. “What kind of name is that? Danish? Dutch?” Hank shrugged.

  Jack shook his head, took his cigarette from between his lips and laid it in an ashtray. He smiled. “Okay, who the hell was Olaf?” Hank smiled and leaned over the bar like a fisherman who has felt a tug on the end of his line. “He was an English writer and communist sympathizer in the thirties and forties. No one remembers him now.

  Wrote quite a few bestsellers, which no one reads anymore. Supported causes, which no one remembers. Just wasted his time as far as I can see.”

  “Well,” Jack said, his eyebrows furrowed like parenthesis, “you remembered him.”

  “Ah, that don’t count.” Hank straightened up, raising a finger for em-phasis, “I’m a collector. Pointless hobby I admit, but it keeps my mind out of the traffic. I’m like a stamp collector, collecting stamps that he never intends to use on letters. Funny that no one collects the letters. But, back to our Danish subject. You see, our friend Olaf has been reduced to information. Useless information for most folks. He’s not an important figure in history, or literature, or anything. I suppose he was important to his kids, but they didn’t amount to much. One became a lawyer but that’s about where they topped off. You see where I’m heading? How many people will be remembered from the twentieth century? Einstein, Freud, Picasso, Gandhi, Hitler? A handful in a population of billions.

  Getting the lay of the land yet? Olaf in his time was considered brilliant, dedicated, even charismatic. Today he’d be doing the circuit of talk shows. They might make a made-for-television movie about him. It would all lead to a familiar end. Anonymity. This century will be known for its gadgets-the telephone, the automobile, the computer, the electric guitar, the A-bomb, the paper clip. We won’t be remembered for our insights, our great minds. We are the literate dark ages. Have you got the 20 picture, Jack? We’re just replaceable parts in the machine called Modern Living.”

  “Well,” Jack muttered, “that’s pretty depressing. What’s the point of striving for something if you’re going to take it to the grave with you?”

  “Vanity, Jack. We’re filled with our own sense of self-importance. Each of us thinks that we’re the center of the universe when we’re no more important than the plant that produced that cigarette you’re smoking or the drink I’m enjoying. It’s that vanity that keeps the machine working smoothly.”

  Jack straightened up, and taking a deep breath, declared, “I like to think I’m of some use. People need someone to listen to them.”

  “Listening to people who have nothing to say.” Hank smiled knowingly, but realizing that Jack might take offense to his remarks, back-tracked. “But I suppose comfort is not to be underestimated. Someone has to hold the hands of the beloved during
their last hours on this sphere. Bartenders and priests-we couldn’t do without them.” The door of the bar opened and a couple stepped into the room and took a seat at a table near the cigarette machine. Jack excused himself as he went to serve his new customers. After he had taken their order and delivered their drinks he returned to the bar.

  “I suppose this Olaf is dead,” Jack suggested.

  Hank nodded. “In 1950. September sixth.” Gesturing with his head to the new couple seated at the table in the corner, Hank added, “Take that young couple that you just served.”

  “What about them?”

  “What does life hold in store for them?”

  Jack shrugged. “Don’t know much about them. I’ve seen him in here a couple of times with his buddies. I think they’re in some kind of softball league. Come for a few beers after the game. I don’t think I’ve seen the girl in here before. Not much to look at but she seems nice enough. They look like they’re courting.”

  “He’s got his hand on her knee,” Hank said.

  Jack stared across the room.

  “How can you see that from over here? The bar’s too dark. And your back is to them.”

  “I’m looking at them through the mirror behind you.” Hank sipped at his beer. “He’ll be trying to slip into her panties later in the evening. The vulgar groping of the lower classes.”

  Jack looked behind him into the mirror and smiled.

  “I guess we were all young once,” Jack said, shaking his head. A new customer stepped into the room and took a stool by the bar. Jack moved down the bar and took his order, reaching under the bar into a cooler for a beer.

  Hank raised his own beer to his mouth and stared into the mirror. He saw the young man’s hand slide up the girl’s skirt. She playfully rapped his hand and smiled. Not here, he could read on her lips. The door of the bar opened again and in stepped Mary. She looked around, spotted Hank, and crossed over to the bar and took a stool beside him.

  “I hope you haven’t been waiting long?” she asked, giving Hank a kiss on the cheek. “Boring Jack with your stories?”

  “Do you know who John Andrew Kenney was?” Hank asked before Mary had a chance to catch her breath. “In 1944 he was chosen by the Harmon foundation as one of the United State’s most prominent Negroes.”

  Mary laughed. “You are the most remarkable man I have ever met. I suppose he died in 1950.”

  Hank smiled. “You got it, sister. Tell me now, why did they give an award to the most prominent Negro? Why would you give an award to any prominent member of any ethnic background? Doesn’t it reek of an inferiority complex? Were any awards given to the most prominent Eng-lishman of 1940? The upper classes never award themselves. They don’t have to. They’re in charge.”

  Mary shook with laughter as she gestured to Jack to bring her the usual.

  “Do you know what this big lug told me this morning? That the world ended in 1950, that we’re-what did you call it? — the flotsam of time’s demise. Isn’t that the craziest idea you ever heard?” Jack shook his head and looked at Mary’s dress, smiling with approval.

  “That’s a lovely dress,” he said.

  Mary blushed and turned to Hank.

  “How come you didn’t notice?” she asked.

  Hank leaned over and whispered in Mary’s ear. “I was concentrating on what was underneath it.”

  A Young Couple

  “Why did you ask me out for a drink, Joe?” the girl asked as she sipped at her Coke. This place is so dark.

  “I like you, Helen,” Joe said, his teeth flashing in a neon smile. Why do you think I asked you out, honey? “Everyday I come into your office, I see you sitting behind that desk, typing away. You look so efficient. Professional. I’ve always admired that in a woman.” This shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll probably be able to get back to my place in time to catch the ninth inning.

  Helen blushed. He’s so sure of himself. “I’m taking courses. I’d like to better myself. I think that’s important. Please take your hand off my knee, Joe.”

  “What courses are you taking?” Joe asked. A couple more drinks and I’ll have her panties off.

  “Bookkeeping,” Helen said, gripping Joe’s wrist, attempting to push his hand away. Why does he have to be like this?

  “Just let me feel what you’ve got up there.” Joe chuckled good-naturedly. “What we need is a little music.” Joe got up from the table and stepped over to the jukebox. He dropped a few coins in the slot and returned to his chair, putting his arm around Helen’s shoulder.

  “Please,” Helen cried in a low voice. “I thought you would be a gentleman.”

  Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto” began to play.

  “It’s dark in here,” he assured her, his fingers grazing the shoulder strap of Helen’s dress.

  “Later,” Helen whispered in desperation. “That man over there is watching us.”

  Joe looked up and took his hand off Helen.

  “Where?”

  “By the bar,” Helen replied.

  “His back is to us,” Joe said with a smirk.

  “In the mirror,” Helen whimpered. “He’s watching us in the mirror.”

  “The pervert,” Joe said with a laugh. “I should go up and give him a piece of my mind.”

  “Don’t make a scene,” Helen pleaded.

  “You’re sure? I could box his ears for you.” The guy is a giant.

  “He’s awfully big.”

  “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Joe laughed, taking a second look at the fellow at the bar. She goes for the tough guy look. Joe jerked his neck and straightened out his shoulders in a bravado posture.

  Helen squeezed Joe’s arm. “Please don’t. I appreciate the gesture but I don’t want anyone to get hurt on my account.” He’d kill you.

  Joe turned and looked at Helen. There was a pleading look in her eyes.

  This is too easy.

  “You’re all right.” He smiled and took Helen’s chin between two fingers and playfully squeezed it. “A lot of girls would love to see their man defend them but you’re not interested in showmanship. You really don’t like to see people get hurt. And I would have hurt him. Don’t you think for a moment I wouldn’t have cut that fellow down an inch or two.

  I’ve got quite a temper. And I can take care of myself.” Helen smiled. “Yes, I believe you can. But he is awfully big.” Look at the size of his head.

  Joe’s smile left his face momentarily. She had repeated that particular observation. Shit! I think she wants me to take him on.

  “You think I couldn’t take him, don’t you? Sure he’s big. I’ve been in a few donnybrooks in my time. I played professional hockey for a while. I didn’t tell you that, did I?”

  Helen shook her head.

  “Semi-professional,” Joe added. “But I figure I’ve got a little left in the tank if they’d give me a chance. Sales is just a temporary thing, to hold me over until the big money starts to roll in. I’m waiting for the phone call. I heard they’re putting a new team in Vegas. I’ll have to quit smoking, though.”

  Helen smiled. He’s lying through his teeth. That’s kind of sweet.

  “I could tell the first time you stepped into our office to see Mr. Brennan that you had a certain swagger. That’s why he bought all that ink from you. We could run the presses for months on the ink Mr. Brennan bought. But he trusts a man with confidence. He told me that.”

  “Ya.” Joe shook his head with a smile and leaned back in his chair, basking in the adulation of the woman beside him. “That was a pretty good sale. Did he really say that about me?” Helen nodded. Oh God, I have to pee.

  Joe smiled. “Old man Brennan really ate up my story. I’ve always had the gift. Things have been going real well for me. I’m not sure I’d want to play again even if they called me. Do I need the aggravation? And if I get a few more commissions like the one off Brennan, I don’t know if I could take the pay cut.”

  “Your story?” Helen finis
hed her drink. Do I put my hand up and ask permission to leave?

  Joe gestured to the bartender for another round.

  “That’s what sales is all about,” Joe explained. “You don’t sell products-you sell a story. You’ve got to let people think that they’re buying a bit of you. It’s all about selling yourself and a story is the best way to sell yourself. Okay, you don’t always tell the complete story. You exaggerate, maybe even lie, but as long as you’re entertaining, the customer is happy.”

  Jack stepped up to the table. Joe looked up.

  “Another beer for myself and a glass of white wine for the lady.”

  “I shouldn’t,” Helen protested.

  “Ah, you only live once,” Joe said with a wink at Helen. Then he turned back to the bartender. “And tell cupid up at the bar to keep his eyes to himself.”

  When Jack returned to the bar, Helen turned to Joe.

  “You promised you wouldn’t make a scene,” she pleaded.

  “Ah, that wasn’t a scene.” Joe moved closer to Helen. He put his arm around her. “You’ve got to make sure that people understand the boundaries. You weren’t fooling when you said that thing about later, were you?”

  Helen smiled. “I have to go to the ladies’ room.” Joe ignored Helen’s request. “I don’t like to be told one thing now and another later.”

  Helen patted Joe’s hand. “I really have to go to the ladies’ room.” Joe got to his feet and let Helen pass in front of him. He tapped her on the bum as she left and watched her move across the room. The door of the bar opened and Mary stepped inside. She looked around and spotted Joe sitting alone. She smiled. Joe nodded. Mary turned and walked over to the bar.

  I know her, Joe thought to himself. Mary climbed onto a stool beside the giant. What an ass. Recognition flashed across Joe’s face into a smile. One night in here after a ball game. She got real hammered. We danced. She could hardly keep her hands off me.

  Helen stepped back into the room and walked across the room toward Joe. She noticed he was watching the blonde at the bar. Once seated, she took a sip of her drink. He can’t take his eyes off her. It’s Mary.

 

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